How many lakes are there in the world?

Water has a very special
allure to most people, and that’s probably partly because we are mostly made
out of water. Either we are talking about lakes,
rivers, seas or oceans, everything seems to be more exciting and more beautiful
when there’s water involved.

I’m sure you’ve marveled at
the beauty of a mountain lake on many occasions, but have you ever wondered how
many lakes there are in the world? Are there perhaps 10,000? Maybe even
100,000? Well, according to the latest count, there are approximately 117
million lakes in the world. The research was made using satellite images and
powerful computerized mapping technologies, by an international team made of
scientists from Sweden, Estonia, France and the United States.

The lakes counted in this
massive endeavor were lakes 0.2 hectares in surface area or bigger. For
comparison’s sake, 0.2 hectares is half an acre or one and a half Olympic
swimming pools. The combined area of all
the world’s lakes is about 5 million square kilometers or about 2 millions
square miles, roughly 3.7% of the Earth’s non-glaciated land area. An important
thing to note is the fact that the Caspian Sea, the world’s biggest lake, was
excluded from the count.

Why was it excluded? Well,
that’s probably because many people actually consider it a sea and its water is
salty. The Caspian Sea also has a surface area of 371,000 square kilometers,
far larger than any other lake.

So what are the biggest freshwater
lakes? In terms of surface area, that honor goes to Lake Superior, about 82,000
square kilometers in size. However, in terms of volume, the honor goes to one
of the planet’s biggest treasures, Lake Baikal. The Siberian lake is the deepest lake in the
world, and with a volume of 23,615 cubic kilometers, it contains roughly 20% of
all the world’s freshwater.

Needless to say, the lakes
on our planet are also one of our biggest assets. We should strive to protect
them and care for them for generations to come.